Tom Hiddleston

He auditioned to play Thor. Kenneth Branagh had other ideas. Hiddleston showed up to the Thor (2011) audition as a tall, blond, classically trained actor and walked out cast as the villain instead. That turned out to be the better deal. Loki became one of Marvel's few antagonists who stuck around long enough to get complicated, and Hiddleston spent the next decade playing the same character across films and two seasons of a Disney+ series. He won the Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer. Nobody was arguing.

The summer of 2016 involved a white tank top with 'I heart T.S.' written on it, and the photos circled the internet for years. He got through it. The Life of Chuck, his 2024 Stephen King adaptation, won the People's Choice Award at TIFF. His 2025 West End run of Much Ado About Nothing at Theatre Royal Drury Lane set a box office record for a play, and he's taking it to Broadway with Hayley Atwell in fall 2026. The earnest-British-actor reputation hasn't faded, but the work has started to carry more weight.

He was at Eton at the same time as both Prince William and Eddie Redmayne, which is the kind of detail that makes 'I went to boarding school' land differently. He earned a double first in Classics at Cambridge before RADA, which is an unusual route for a future Marvel villain. His father was a biotech director. He's described becoming an actor at Eton as 'unconventional' for his peer group, and given who his classmates were, that's a polite way to put it.